Lord Turnbull: My Lords, successive reports of the International Panel on Climate Change have increased our knowledge and have narrowed down the range of uncertainty on the prospects of climate change. The estimates will continue to be refined but, for me, at least, it is now clear enough that an approach of "wait and see" is no longer tenable or even morally defensible. It is most unlikely that this will all turn out to be a false alarm.
	Fifteen years ago, I hoped that the scientists might discover—as is often the case in nature—that some dampening mechanism had come into effect, that a hotter, moister, more carbon-rich atmosphere encouraged more active carbon sinks and sequestration. Instead, I am more concerned about the accelerative mechanisms: the saturation of the upper layers of the oceans; the reduction in the polar icecaps; the reflective power of the Earth; and, most frightening of all, the thawing of the Siberian tundra, which is releasing vast quantities of methane and has a global effect 21 times that of CO2.
	The dying breed who argue that even if there is warming, it is due to something other than CO2, are now largely confined to Texas and the Washington Beltway, although, as the noble Lords, Lord Waldegrave and Lord Crickhowell, have hinted, they may have posted one or two honorary consuls in their midst. They need to explain how it is possible to double the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere and not have a warming effect: in other words, why the scientists of the 19th century, such as Fourier and Arrhenius, were wrong.
	It is therefore welcome that the Government are responding in the Bill to the growing threat that we face. Nevertheless, there are some questions about the components of the Government's approach to climate change. First, the target set for 2050 appears to be largely unconditional and unilateral. The UK will commit itself to this target irrespective of the performance of other nations. The reality, however, is that our own contribution by 2050 is unlikely to be crucial, so we are heavily dependent on the exemplary effect: in other words, we cannot carry conviction in international debate if we do not carry our full share of the burden. There is genuine validity in this, but we should not be naïve and rely on it too heavily. If we fail to persuade other nations, we could be left in 40 years' time having paid heavily to decarbonise our economy and still incurring the costs of rebuilding our sea defences and water resources. The Bill should therefore contain a duty to work actively internationally for more demanding targets.
	I am critical of a number of aspects of EU policy on climate change, but the EU might have the better of the argument in one respect. The target for CO2 for 2020, which was set at the May 2007 council, is in two parts: first, a high target representing what it believes is necessary, will campaign for and will adopt if others do the same; secondly, a lower but still demanding target, which is what it will do unconditionally regardless of others.
	On the other hand, the adoption of a separate target for the share of renewables, to which we signed up at the same council, is a serious error. It is wrong to preordain a market share for any source of energy or any technology, and there would rightly be strong objections from NGOs and from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches if such a thing were attempted for nuclear power. Having pushed up the price of carbon to reflect its social costs, whether by taxes or by cap and trade, we should allow renewables to find their own level. They should enter the merit order on merit—in other words, because they can contribute substantially to a low-carbon economy—but we should not push on blindly to push the share all the way up to 20 per cent if there are other non-renewable sources, such as clean coal or nuclear, which cost us less. In short, we should in our thinking replace the renewable/non-renewable distinction with a low-carbon versus a high-carbon distinction. There will be many instruments at our disposal: taxes, relief from taxes, cap and trade, subsidy, grant, and regulation. None is inherently superior to the others, and all will find a use. Whichever is used should be reduced to a common metric: the cost per tonne of carbon avoided. Otherwise, we will find that we are a long way from equalising at the margin the effectiveness of the different approaches.
	A recent report by John Llewellyn of Lehmann Brothers, which I commend to the House, demonstrates that the implied cost of carbon in the EU auto-regulations greatly exceeds the IPCC's estimate of the cost of carbon required to stabilise CO2 at around 550 parts per million. One of the instruments permitted is the purchase of carbon credits, to which a number of noble Lords have referred. In theory, this allows lower-cost ways of reducing carbon to be pursued and brings the developing world into the system, but we must not fool ourselves; much of the credits industry is intellectually bogus—the modern equivalent of purchasing indulgences. Adopting a hydro scheme in Cameroon, say, rather than reducing carbon at home, may look smart but only if there is genuine additionality; that is, the hydro scheme would not have gone ahead otherwise. It is essential that there is integrity to the process.
	I welcome the creation of the Committee on Climate Change, but it must be expert, objective and independent. It must not be put together by balancing opposing vested interests. There can be no place for representatives, whether of business interests or campaigning NGOs. Like many noble Lords, I believe that the committee should be given power to advise not just on appropriate carbon budgets but also on the effectiveness of the different approaches being followed. Having assembled a group with substantial expertise and the staff to support it, it would be a great waste not to use that fully. I support those who see a role for the committee in the field of adaptation.
	Finally, we must recognise that we face an optimisation problem, not a maximisation one. There are multiple objectives—carbon reduction, strengthened energy security, affordability and promoting economic development. We should avoid approaches which pursue one of those without regard to the others. Regrettably, the US seems to be on a course to tackle energy security even if it involves measures which add to CO2 emissions. Many of the so-called unconventional hydrocarbons, such as tar sands and tight gas, do precisely that, as do some forms of biofuels.
	This is a Bill of extraordinary ambition. I know of no other instance where a Secretary of State is placed under a statutory duty of such breadth and has such responsibility for the actions of other people. I was interested in the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, about how this might be approached. Nevertheless, we have to face it that climate change is an issue like no other. Only nuclear war has quite the same global and possibly terminal impact. I am confident that, amended through the collective wisdom of this House, this Bill can be a pioneer in the way in which countries go about organising themselves in tackling climate change and that it can mobilise scientific, economic and philosophical resources to bring rationality to a series of formidably complex problems.

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I, too, had the immense privilege of serving on the Joint Committee under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I pay a particular thank you to him as he performed an almost impossible task, and to all the Clerks who helped us. In particular I highlight the work of Charlotte Littleboy, who did the most amazing job. However, although prelegislative scrutiny is a very good idea, the Government always seem to give us far too little time to do a very difficult job. If it is really going to work, the Government need to think about giving committees more time so that we can do a better job.
	In the committee we discussed whether the Climate Change Bill had an appropriate name, given that climate change has been going on for millions of years. I live in a house in the north of Scotland whose stone is tropical and was laid down 355 million years ago. I walk on peat that was not there when the Neolithics were hunter-gatherers. I walk on a beach with pine trees in the middle of it that is now all sand, so I see the effect of a change in sea level. I work with a community that has to work in harmony with nature and the environment, which 99 per cent of the rest of the UK does not seem to do any more. We have made an awful mess of our planet.
	In the international context, this Bill presents us with huge costs but, much more importantly, huge opportunities and challenges to which we should rise. I am glad that the UK is taking a lead, since British scientists discovered the hole in the ozone layer. My noble friend Lady Thatcher, then Prime Minister, hosted the ozone conference when I was Minister for the Environment, which led to the Montreal Protocol, which is an international agreement. We all seem to have forgotten that we have tackled these problems before, but the problem facing us today is a much more difficult one.
	I am also concerned that climate change is a bit of a buzzword, as it is used by the Government to support any legislation that they think is appropriate. For instance, they used the issue of climate change to support the introduction of energy performance certificates in home improvement packs, but when those certificates were first mooted and imposed by Brussels climate change was not even mentioned. It is now said to be the cause of every single natural disaster, although those disasters are in fact caused by man's stupid greed and his ability to build in the wrong place. If man builds on a flood plain and below sea level, there are going to be problems, but we continue to do it—and now we are blaming it on poor old climate change.
	There is no doubt, however, that we are in a new era of climate change, in which man has influenced the climate. We have to do something about it—and therefore I welcome the Bill, although it needs to be improved and made stronger for it to work properly.
	I turn to some of the issues that we face with the Bill. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell is absolutely right in saying that the Bill is not enforceable. The duty on the Secretary of State will never be enforced and should therefore not be there. We discussed this at length in the committee, where we got towards an improved wording, but it is still an area that needs to be thought through and discussed, which we shall do in Committee.
	Undoubtedly one of the most important parts of the Bill relates to the Committee on Climate Change. I start with a criticism. The news of the shadow committee leaked out as though it was an accident. Why were the Government not up front with the Joint Committee? Why did they not tell us that they were setting up a committee and that this was its remit? It caught us by surprise. We were asking questions about whether setting up a shadow committee would be a good idea, to be told that it was already happening and that the Government were doing it. That does not lead to any confidence in the Government; if they cannot be straightforward and give a body such as the Joint Committee the requisite information, what other things are they holding back?

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that, but the news of setting up the shadow secretariat came out by accident. It is important that the Government are absolutely up front to us all about this. Exactly where are we with that shadow secretariat? What is the timing for the appointment of a shadow chairman of the future committee? That person will have to work—as will the committee—with all the evidence to be able to produce the requisite information, otherwise it will not be able to be done on time.
	As regards the future role of the committee, the evidence of Professor Sir David King and Malcolm Wicks MP, then Minister of State for Science and Innovation, was contradictory. My noble friend Lord Waldegrave talked about who should be on the committee. When we discuss this in Committee, it is important that the committee's role should be made absolutely clear for it, Parliament and everybody else to understand.
	We suggested that there should be sectoral targets but the Government dismissed the Joint Committee's report. However, the head of the Bill team, Mr Robin Mortimer, explained in the evidence, in answer to Question 641, that,
	"the committee will have to look sector by sector at what it considers possible across the economy".
	Unless there are sectoral targets and annual milestones, the committee's work will be severely hampered. I hope that at future stages of the Bill the Government will realise that the only way forward, besides the five-year budget and the five-year target, is to have an annual stepping stone.
	I shall discuss appointments in detail later but I hope that the Secretary of State will not get his sticky fingers on appointing the vice-chair of the committee; that is a job for the chairman.
	It was clear that the funding provision in the draft legislation was totally inadequate for the job that the committee has to do. If the committee is to have credibility and be a leading light across Europe and the world, it has to be properly funded and to be able to use the advice and the modelling of various organisations, but it must also be able to do its own work if it needs to. We cannot have a committee that is short of funds.
	I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said about carbon credits. There must be a limit to the trading of carbon credits. We will come on to that but there seems to be pretty much unanimity among those who have raised the question.
	I am grateful to the Government for the improvements they have made to the draft Bill with regard to parliamentary scrutiny. However, I still do not think that it is enough and we shall discuss that in detail.
	Undoubtedly the Bill will alter all our lives. Every person in the United Kingdom will require huge education in this regard. If the policy behind the Bill is to work, it is critical that it takes the people with it. If the Government try to impose this without taking all the UK population with them, they will fail. A massive effort will be required in every department in Westminster and in the devolved Assemblies, because our way of life as we have been privileged enough to have known it—and, unfortunately, been privileged enough to squander some of the benefits—will be affected. We are going to have to rein back and change our ways. To do that, you have to take everybody with you; you cannot impose it. One of the things that will change is undoubtedly energy. The Energy Bill is rightly talked about in connection with climate change. Building regulations—something close to my heart—will need to be linked with it. I live in the shadow of Dounreay, which has now been decommissioned. What a tragedy. There was a facility in which the UK led the world. If its funding had been maintained, it would have provided a solution to some of our energy problems.
	I overlook, and walk beside, one of the great energy sources in the United Kingdom, the Pentland Firth. What is man doing about it? Nothing. The tidal race running through the Pentland Firth could provide enough electricity to put the lights on all over Scotland. You could do it in the Solway Firth and in the Severn, which is beginning to happen. But unless we start to act now and get hold of problems like that, we shall have a much more difficult task ahead. I support the Bill and will work with the Government to get it through this House, but I would like it amended because it is only 90 per cent good so far.